


LN4

by CupcakeGirlA



Category: Olympics RPF, Real Person Fiction, Sports RPF, Swimming RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:14:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/520997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CupcakeGirlA/pseuds/CupcakeGirlA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ficathon prompt: USA SWIMMING: Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Cullen Jones, Brendan Hansen, Nathan Adrian - they're all in a boyband.</p>
            </blockquote>





	LN4

1) Little Boy Lost

The four of them are spread out across the couches of the main dressing room. Waiting is part of the game and they’ve all learned to adapt, (although Nathan, as the resident newbie, is still learning). A commotion outside the door has Ryan perking up. 

“Looks like they found Mikey,” he says with a smirk. Cullen laughs from the armchair in the corner, kicking one designer shoe clad foot up in the air to examine it.

“Poor Mikey!” he howls. The door flies open and Michael’s pushed inside. He stumbles a couple of feet, and turns to scowl at the door. But the 6 foot tall, 400 lb bodyguard, Davis, Ryan notes, has already yanked the door closed again behind him. Michael turns the scowl on the rest of the room. Nathan jumps to his feet, worried. 

“Dude, you ok?” Nathan asks. Michael huffs. 

“I’m fine, Nate. I’m fucking used to it. It’s ridiculous that a guy can’t go take a leak without being chased down the hall by a bunch of teenage girls!” he replies, flopping down on the couch beside Brendan. Brendan bounces a little at the motion, but valiantly refrains from rolling his eyes, his attention never wavering from the book in his hands. 

“You’d think after four years as the front man of a frickin’ boyband you’d be used to it by now. I don’t know why it continues to surprise you,” he says dryly. Mike makes a face at him. 

“Jeah! But it would be a whole lot easier to stomach if the girls ever got any older. We’ve been doing this for like almost 5 years and the fans just keep staying jailbait. You’d think they’d age. We certainly have,” Ryan says, turning back to his magazine. 

“I just want to find a girl and get laid without having to worry about it being recounted to a sleazy magazine or being hit by a fake paternity suit 9 months later. That shit is getting old!” Michael sneers. Nathan plops down between them, sliding close to Michael. This time Brendan does roll his eyes. 

“You know it doesn’t have to be a girl,” Nathan says with a smile, putting one hand on Michael’s knee. Michael rolls his head to the side to look at Nathan, and casually picks up his hand removing it from his leg. 

“Thanks Nate, but I think I’ll pass,” he says tiredly. “Wake me up when it’s time to go on.” He curls up away from Nathan, resting his head on the arm of the couch. Nathan sits back and tries not to pout. 

Cullen and Ryan both laugh so hard they fall out of their respective seats to roll around on the floor. Nathan throws a conveniently placed and named throw pillow at them both. 

Brendan keeps reading. 

 

2) Mr. Smarty Pants

Nathan sighs, watching the rest of the band go about their post-concert routines. The tour bus was crowded. He’d sort of expected that. But it was lonely too. He hadn’t ever thought a space could be both crowded and lonely at the same time. To be honest things weren’t working out like he’d hoped they would. When he’d first heard that Aaron Peirsol was leaving LN4, he’d been pretty heartbroken. Nathan was, to be completely honest, really a bit of a fanboy and he’d jumped at the chance to audition to be Aaron’s replacement. His friends had laughed. His parents had disapproved. But he knew he could do it. What did it matter that he was tall and gangly and kind of dorky? He could sing like a badass and with coaching he’d turn out to be a pretty good dancer, better than Mike at least, who honestly sort of looked like he didn’t belong on land at all. Besides he knew all their songs already. He was sure it would be like a dream come true. He’d be in the band! He’d become friends with the guys he’d looked up too, had lusted after, since he was 17. It would be perfect. 

It wasn’t perfect. All illusions had been shattered when he met the guys. Sure they were all insanely talented, and pretty decent human beings, but they weren’t the idols he’d dreamed up in his head. Brendan could be pretty grouchy. Michael was kind of down-right pissy on occasion. Ryan was pretty much like he’d imagined, sort of adorably douchey. And Cullen was smooth, really smooth, smoother than their manager and publicist ever let him show to their fans. He had a different girl in his room practically every night, but somehow they never turned out to be the crazies Mike always attracted. And while the four of them really were super tight, Nathan felt like an outsider. Every day there was some private joke, or old story, or something that painfully reminded Nathan that he was the new guy. He’d only been with the band about 4 months, and while the guys had all expressed respect for his talents, none of them had really made any effort to get to know him. Not for real. 

So he sits at the dinette table toward the front of the tour bus, and watches all the guys trying to unwind. It took time to get rid of the adrenaline rush of the performance, and to finally relax. Mike and Ryan are in the back playing video games. Cullen waiting to play the winner. He’s sitting back there with them, headphones on, head bobbing to some crazy beat, eyes trained on the TV screen. Brendan had disappeared into his bunk as soon as they’d gotten on. So Nathan sits alone. 

He shakes his head, pulling his backpack closer and slowly unpacking his books. He has one semester left of school. And he’d promised his parents he wouldn’t stop, not even to be part of the band. He’d been lucky to find out he already knew all the professors for his last few classes. They’d all agreed to let him do the correspondence thing. As long as he came back for his finals next month, they were fine with him turning in papers via email. But that meant he also had to teach himself everything. No easy feat for Anatomy and Physiology in particular. 

He boots up his laptop, opening his email and downloading the class notes a buddy was scanning and sending him after every class. Tonight he was studying the mechanics of the human heart. How fitting.

He cracks open the textbook to the appropriate chapter, and starts reading, taking notes as he goes. He’s thoroughly engrossed in the difference between the semilunar valve and the atrioventriclar valve when Brendan sits down in the bench seat across from him. Nathan makes another note, and looks up. 

“Hey, Brendan. What’s up?” Nathan asks. Brendan looks at the textbook and back at Nathan. 

“What are you reading? Is that a textbook?” he asks. Nathan glances down at his books spread out across the table. 

“Yeah. I’m studying,” Nathan says. He scratches at his ear, a nervous habit. Brendan makes his palms sweat with discomfort, more than the other guys. He sometimes wonders if it’s because of the age difference… 

“You’re still in school?” Brendan asks, unwrapping a pre-made turkey sandwich. 

“Yes. I graduate in December… hopefully.” Nathan smiles, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Cool. So, what’s your major?” Brendan asks, biting into his post-concert snack. 

“Pre-med,” he answers. Brendan stares at him with wide eyes, jaw dropping open in surprise. Nathan smirks. Brendan swallows thickly.

“Pre-med? What the hell are you doing on the road with us?” he asks taking another bite and chewing slowly. 

“Having a doctor in the family… that’s what my parents wanted. I always wanted to sing. Make people happy. Not dig around in their insides,” Nathan explains. “I’m just trying to finish the degree to satisfy my parents. They weren’t too happy with me leaving school one semester before graduation.” He turns back to his book. 

“So… where do you go? University of Washington?” Brendan asks, taking another bite of his sandwich. 

“UC Berkeley,” Nathan responds, flipping a page in his textbook. Brendan gasps and chokes loudly on his mouthful, causing Nathan to jump up and smack him on the back. He pounds on the older man’s back several times, until Brendan gasps in a deep breath and waves him away. 

“You ok?” Nathan asks. By then the commotion had grabbed the interest of the rest of the band, and they’d come flooding out of the back of the tour bus. 

“What the fuck?” Ryan asks. “Is Nathan trying to kill you?!” Nathan rolls his eyes, shaking his head. 

“No. But genius boy over here has some explaining to do!” Brendan answers, pointing an accusing finger at Nathan. 

“What!?” Nathan asks in confusion. 

 

3) The Real Horny One

The band runs off stage, sweaty and exhilarated. Another concert done. Another happy crowd of dedicated fans. Security shuffles them back into the main dressing room. Saying something about a problem with the bus or something like that. Ryan hadn’t really been paying that much attention. He takes a detour to the bathroom, and when he gets back to their holding pen, as they lovingly refer to it, he finds that one of their assistants has been by with clean clothes so that they can change out of their stage clothes. 

But by the time he’s arrived, all of the guys are already mid-change. He closes the door behind himself, and glances around. Nathan’s in the corner, facing the wall. He’s still shy around the rest of them, especially when changing. Brendan is rolling his eyes as he listens to Cullen and Mike play fight about who had more fan signs in the audience that night. Ryan’s attention focuses solely in on Michael. He’s got his shirt off, his jeans hanging low on his hips, and a strip of his Calvin Klein underwear is just visible above the waistband. Yet even those are pulled lower than normal, and his tattoos, which the fans whisper about in confused fascination (they’d never seen them in their entirety), are just barely peeking out. The sight of them makes Ryan’s dick hard, and his mouth water. It’s a conditioned response.

He’s across the room and on his knees seconds later, hands tugging at Michael’s belt. Cullen laughs loudly, stepping back with his hands held high in the air. 

“Woah! Ok man, peace out!” he says crossing the room. Brendan just starts to laugh, pulling on a clean t-shirt and flinging himself down into an armchair, hand scooping up the remote to the Television from the side table. They’re both used to these things by now. Michael lets out a quiet laugh. 

“Something’s gotten into you tonight!” he says, letting his hands rest on Ryan’s shoulders. Ryan grins up at him, dimples showing. He tugs the jeans down and away, easing Michael’s underwear a few inches lower. He licks across the flat of Michael’s belly, mouthing his way to Michael’s right hip, where he traces the curved lines of a Grammy statue etched into the skin in black and gold. Mike’d gotten it three years ago, on a drunken dare. Aaron and Ryan had volunteered to hold his hands throughout the whole ordeal. They’d won Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. Michael had gotten the tat while still high off the win. It was 1 in the morning and they’d stumbled into some seedy little tattoo parlor in downtown LA. Somehow Michael had even talked Aaron into getting a matching one on his own hip. He’d always been able to talk Aaron into doing stuff. At least back then. A lot had changed in the three years since. “You’re going to scare off the new guy,” Michael murmurs. Ryan laughs and scraps his teeth across the tattoo, before moving across to Michael’s other hip where a tattoo of Treble Clef was clearly visible. Ryan puckered his lips and gave it a wet kiss. Seeing it always reminded Ryan of something a teenage girl would get as her first tattoo, not a very male, award-winning recording artist, and international sex-symbol. 

Ryan inhales deeply, his eyes closing. 

“Nathan’s been trying to suck your dick since he joined. Let him see why you’ve always said no,” Ryan whispers. He leans forward to mouth Michael’s dick through his underwear, sucking and licking ‘til his spit and the precum leaking from Michael’s erection has his shorts molded to him like a second skin. Pulling back Ryan breathes across the outlined tip, and feels Michael’s entire body shudder in reaction. 

A quiet whimper from across the room has Ryan fighting not to smile. 

“You’re going to piss them off if you keep watching them.”

“If they didn’t want us to watch they wouldn’t do it right in front of us. Let him live vicariously.”

“I… I’m just. I… I thought Mike was straight?” 

Michael wraps a hand in the curls on the back of Ryan’s head and tugs half-heartedly. 

“He’s always been firmly in bi territory. But the only man he’ll let near his dick is Ryan, so you might want to lay off with those come-ons. Ryan can be a bit…”

“Possessive? Territorial? Cray Cray?” 

“Exactly. Look, but do not touch.” 

Ryan pulls back, carefully peeling back Michael’s underwear. His long erection bounces free in the cool air. Ryan wastes no time in swallowing it down, Mike’s head falls back as he lets out a long low groan of pure pleasure and want. 

“They’re just... fuck me that’s hot.” 

“Keep dreaming. They’re one-man sorta guys. Now girls, that’s another issue entirely!”

Michael comes hard and fast down Ryan’s tight throat, mouth opening in wordless wonder. 

Afterwards Mike fights to catch his breath, and looks down at Ryan’s flushed cheeks and red wet mouth. He rubs one thumb across Ryan’s bottom lip and smiles.

“Nobody does it like you,” he murmurs. Ryan’s smirk says it all. 

 

4) The Old Guy

Brendan’s alone in his room, rubbing Icy Hot into his knees, and wincing with the aches and pains that always start sprouting up around midway through a tour. Though if he was being honest with himself, those aches and pains were starting earlier and earlier on each tour they did. He rubs the ointment in to his left knee carefully before moving on to the right. He’s just finishing up when there’s a knock on the door. 

Brendan makes his way to the door, and checks the peephole before opening it. They’d all learned that lesson the hard way their first year as a group. Fangirls could be scarily persistent. And no one wanted to get caught with a 15 year old girl in their hotel room. That couldn’t possibly end well. But all he sees is Nathan, and Bains, their head of security. He unbolts the door and opens it quickly. Bains pushes Nathan forward a few more inches. And Brendan quickly notices his slightly disheveled appearance. His hair is messy, he has an angry red scratch down one arm, and his t-shirt is torn at the shoulder. 

“Ugh-oh,” he says with a grin. Nathan rolls his eyes. Bains chuckles. 

“Adrian here just learned a valuable lesson in hotel security. And you know protocol. He’s with you tonight,” Bains says pushing him forward again. Brendan stands to the side letting Nathan continue past him without argument. It *was* standard procedure. If a fan made it into someone’s hotel room, then no one got to sleep alone until they moved on to the next city. Booty calls were of course an exception. Brendan was sure that Mike and Ryan were already fucking in their room, and that Cullen had probably demanded to share a room with Davis, as usual. Brendan had no doubt that by midnight the two of them would be high as fucking kites, and waxing philosophic on the lost art of writing good rap lyrics. It was a common topic of discussion for the two, especially when high. 

Bains holds out a duffle bag full of Nathan’s clothes and wishes Brendan a good night. Brendan takes the bed, shakes his head in amusement and closes the door. It’s automatic to engage the security lock. When he turns around he finds Nathan stretched out across the couch, head and calves pillowed on each couch arm, feet dangling in mid-air, his long body too big for the couch. Brendan fights down a smirk. Nathan has his arms crossed over his chest, and a pout on his face. 

“Go ahead laugh! Bains did. And Kenny. And fucking Davis!” Nathan says, annoyed. Brendan swallows his mirth. 

“I’m not going to laugh. Look, Buddy, I’ve been there. We all have. You’ll learn to be more careful. It comes with the territory,” Brendan says, sitting back down on the end of the bed. He reaches for his abandoned tube of ointment, and groans as he pulls his shirt off. His shoulder is aching too. He reaches around as well as he can with the other arm, rubbing in the ointment and wincing again in the process. Nathan’s there an instant later, holding out a hand for the tube. 

“Let me,” he demands. Brendan eyes him for a moment before nodding and handing it over.

Nathan sits behind him on the side of the bed and carefully rubs Icy Hot into the joint, and the surrounding muscles of Brendan’s shoulder. Brendan closes his eyes in pained pleasure. Blinking them open again, he glances back at Nathan. 

“Thanks,” he says over his shoulder. Nathan nods, his face serious. He smears more ointment over Brendan’s upper back, following the curve of his shoulder blade. 

“You guys could have warned me…” Nathan says softly. Brendan frowns. 

“Sometimes it’s easy to forget that this way of living isn’t normal. And you fit in well enough that it’s even easier to forget you don’t know all the ins and outs of this life as well as the rest of us do,” Brendan explains. Nathan’s hands leave his back. 

“Yeah, well I don’t always feel like I fit in. Sometimes it feels like I never will,” he says. He stands up and hands Brendan back the tube. Then he grabs up his bag, heading for the bathroom. “Be back in a few,” he calls back absently. Brendan frowns after him. 

He groans, laying his tired body back across his temporary bed. 22 year olds and their angst... He sighs. “I’m too old for this shit,” he tells the ceiling.

 

5) The One Who Fell Again

None of it is pre-planned. If asked ahead of time Brendan would have said Nathan was entirely too young for him, and if you’d asked Nathan he would have probably laughed nervously, blushed, and hurried away from you. Mainly because Brendan… Brendan was Brendan. He was awesome, and smart, and experienced in ways that Nathan just wasn’t. And he wasn’t just talking about with relationships or the industry. But in everything. 7 years could really make all the difference in the world. 

But it had happened. Though neither could really pinpoint how and later there had been a minor argument over when it had first started. Nathan thought it started that day on the bus, when Brendan realized he wasn’t just some dumb kid. Brendan thought maybe things had started to shift that night in his hotel room, with Nathan being angsty, and the smell of Icy Hot in the air. 

No matter when it started or how or why, they worked together. Brendan was less grumpy, Nathan was less distant. The group gelled better, and their performances on tour were more together and frankly, more fun. 

The tour ended at the end of November, and the group returned en mass to California. The guys wished Nathan well as he headed back to Berkeley to take his finals and hopefully graduate. 

Nathan, Davis in tow, returns to campus on a Friday afternoon. He goes by each of his professor’s offices, turning in final assignments and firming up dates for his three final exams. They’re scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday respectively. 

He also poses for approximately 25 pictures, and signs somewhere between 75 and 100 autographs before making it back to the car and safely into the hotel. Where he promptly calls Brendan. 

“Hey! How was campus?” Brendan asks. 

“Good. Busy. I met with all my professors. I should have things wrapped up by midday Wednesday of next week. Do, ummm… Do you think you could make it down for graduation next Saturday?” he asks. 

“You’re planning to walk?” Brendan asks, surprised. 

“Not in the campus wide ceremony. But I was thinking about doing just my departments. It will be less people. I think Davis almost had a fit when I told him I wanted to go. But he talked to Bains, who thinks it might be possible. He’s going to come down himself, and probably Kenny too. I was hoping you could come. It would be a good time for you to meet some of my friends. And well, my parents will be there…” he trails off. 

“Ahh… meeting the parents. You think we’re ready for that step?” Brendan teases. 

“Don’t be an asshole. You’ve already met my parents! And my brother and sister. But yes, I do think it would be a good time to tell them, you know, about us.” Nathan says it quietly, like he’s not sure how Brendan will react. 

“I think,” he pauses, and Nathan starts chewing on the end of his mechanical pencil in the silence. “I think I will be on the first flight on Thursday. Unless you’d like me to come out tomorrow? I thought you might need a little help studying. I could quiz you on the nervous system and like the circulatory system or whatever it was you’ve been studying since midterms,” Brendan offers. The smile that floods Nathan’s face is real, and had he not been alone would surely have blinded anyone else in the room. 

“Thanks for the offer, and you know I’d love the company. But I think you might be more of a distraction than a help at the moment,” he explains. Brendan’s laugh filters down the phone line. 

“I was afraid of that. I’ll come up on Thursday then.” Nathan smiles.

“Probably for the best. But if you want too, you could catch a plane out on Wednesday afternoon if you wanted,” Nathan suggests. Brendan laughs again. 

“Aww, do you miss me?” he asks. Nathan snorts, and Brendan hums in pleasure. “Ok, ok, Wednesday. So, are you excited yet for the new album?” Brendan asks, changing the topic of discussion. 

“Excited? Yes very, I’ve never done anything like this before,” Nathan explains. 

“Well, as soon as you’re done we can start writing for the new album. And in January we’ll start recording.” Nathan nods, even though Brendan can’t see him.

“I’m just nervous I think,” he says softly. Brendan frowns. 

“About what?” he asks. 

“What if we don’t mesh well in the studio? The fans bought tickets to see the band, because they love you guys. But they haven’t heard me sing. They don’t know my voice. What if they hate what we come up with? It feels like you guys recording an album without Aaron will make things much more official. Final,” Nathan says. 

“Isn’t that a good thing though?” Brendan asks. Nathan doesn’t respond. Brendan sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Nate, the fans love you. You’ve already won them over. Or did I imagine all those signs with your name on them during the tour? And they have heard you sing. We did those radio promotions and all those TV interviews. They’ve heard you sing and they like your voice. Just like we do. Why are you stressing about this now?” Brendan asks. Nathan bites his lip. 

“I always have to have some big thing on my mind I guess. With school almost over, I’m panicking over the next big thing to come up,” he confesses. 

“Well stop it!” Brendan laughs. “Everything is going good right now. You’re going to finish school. Graduate. Record a couple of number one hit singles, and get ridiculously rich, and become well-loved the world over.” 

Nathan lays back across his hotel bed and laughs. 

“That sounds like some pretty good goals for the immediate future. Can you promise I will get laid a lot too?” he asks. 

“Oh definitely!” Brendan promises. “Pretty often if you play your cards right. Just try to remember that your boyfriend is an old man in comparison to you.” 

“Oh yeah, at 29 you’re just so decrepit…” Nathan teases. Brendan grins into the phone, opening his laptop and pulling up his email program. He writes a message to their manager, asking for a plane ticket to be booked from LA to Berkeley for Wednesday afternoon. He has a boyfriend to go see.


End file.
